Thoughtful night

Politicians, journalists, and experts have unanimously found the parliamentary election campaign that has just ended to be the most uneventful and slow-paced of all campaigns in recent Ukrainian history. The night after the elections was similarly unremarkable. The camps of the election frontrunners closed in the first half of the night, and studios of televised election marathons emptied as the night progressed to dawn.

Nearly identical results of three exit polls that were released as soon as the polling stations closed at 10 p.m. sent many people into a state of shock and moral stupor. That Yuliya Tymoshenko’s bloc would garner the second largest number of votes was fairly predictable. However, nobody could predict the colossal gap between her bloc and the pro-presidential Our Ukraine People’s Union. “It is divine punishment on us. I only don’t know for what,” one of Our Ukraine representatives shouted into his cell phone while somebody on the other end was reporting to him preliminary exit poll results.

While he was saying these words he did not know yet that on the following morning foreign mass media would unanimously proclaim the outcome of the Ukrainian parliamentary elections as “a crushing and humiliating defeat to President Yushchenko.” Now the president’s team will have to willy-nilly seek a coalition deal with Tymoshenko’s team. In all likelihood, the price of this deal will be the prime minister’s seat for Yuliya Tymoshenko. It is only disturbing how quickly Roman Bezsmertny, one of Our Ukraine leaders and an irreconcilable opponent of Yuliya Tymoshenko, agreed to this deal. Already at 11 p.m. on the election night he told journalists that the “orange” force to have garnered the largest number of votes can rightfully claim title to this post. This told, Our Ukraine’s press center closed a short while later.

Meanwhile, the undisputable leader of the parliamentary race, the Party of the Regions, appears to have scored a Pyrric victory. With a record number of votes in the entire history of Ukrainian parliamentary elections, the Party of the Regions will most likely end up in opposition again.

Unless, of course, Yanukovych’s camp manages to reach a coalition deal with Our Ukraine ahead of the Tymoshenko Bloc and the Socialist Party of Ukraine. As we know, Tymoshenko recently signed a commitment that she would never and under no circumstances join forces with the Regions Party. Viktor Yanukovych himself made the first move toward the president’s team. At 11:30 p.m. on the election night he told journalists that “there is no compromise that we would not agree to for the sake of stability.” The Party of the Regions leader also said that the first thing his political force will do once in parliament will be to revive the economy.

The atmosphere was also tranquil at the Central Electoral Commission. “If we only knew that it would be so boring here, we would have obtained accreditation at least at one of the camps,” journalists were heard complaining to one another. This time around ballots were processed extremely slowly. Way after midnight television screens displayed results based on several hundredths of a percentage point of processed ballots. Perhaps the only place alive with activity on the election night was the press center of the Tymoshenko camp, which was based in a building next to the National Philharmonic.

Victory was celebrated there. One of the Tymoshenko Bloc’s activists met The Day’s correspondent with an exclamation “The spring has in fact triumphed! Incredible!” A festive atmosphere permeated the audience decorated with white and red heart-shaped balloons, all kinds of items with the bloc’s emblem, and its leader’s photographs. At the same time, discussion was intense in the VIP area: Tymoshenko and her allies discussed the format of the future coalition. At 3:30 a.m. they were joined by Socialist Party member Mykola Rudkovsky.

Meanwhile, a cheerless mood dominated in the camps of the People’s Bloc of Lytvyn and the Opposition Bloc “Ne tak!” Lytvyn’s camp closed at around 11 p.m. At a closing news conference People’s Party of Ukraine leader Ihor Yeremeyev said that it was still too soon to jump to conclusions and that exit poll results are not the results of the Central Electoral Commission. SDPU(o) leader Nestor Shufrych said just about the same in numerous televised appearances.

Dawn was still a long way off, but the crowd of politicians, journalists, and international observers was already thinning, some of them leaving to rest and others to guess about what life holds for them.